Their grandmother and mother both suffered discrimination and assault while running the family's first business in Middleton.

Helen told the filmmakers: “I remember quite clearly when I was 11 years old seeing my mum actually being assaulted on one Saturday night by a thug who demanded to get a bag of chips for free.

Helen and Lisa Tse

"My mum, being the principled lady that she was, said 'no, you’re going to pay like everybody else' and then the thug then proceeded to punch my mum who slumped back against the wall, glasses were broken, blood spilled everywhere.

“I really felt helpless at that point and didn’t know what to do. I was too young to help but I didn’t know any other home but Middleton – where else was I going to go?

“I mean, the Chinese people, they’re called the silent minority because we don’t really have a voice. We don’t really complain."

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Lemn Sissay

The film will also speak to the son of devout Sikh Sundar Singh Sagar, who came to England from Pakistan in 1949.

An academic in Lahore, he found work in a mill in Manchester and had to fight to defend his right to wear a turban.

His refusal to wear a crash helmet when riding his motorbike landed him in jail in 1976.

Watch: Lemn Sissay on his new university role

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His son Ujjal Singh, told the programme makers: “He was sent to prison for seven days. But because he was such an iconic figure in the history of the Sikh community in Manchester he was very well respected and looked after in prison.”

Manchester University chancellor Sissay - whose poetry is inspired by multiculturalism - said: “Maybe we’re all immigrants – we emigrate from childhood to adulthood, from school to college to work even.

“Maybe we emigrate from the womb into the open air in a constant state of change and growth from one place to another. The problems seem to happen when all of us arrive.”